AMES, Ia. — Throughout all its troubles this season, Iowa State’s young offensive line has shown moments of promise.

The group showed plenty during Iowa State’s 23-13 win at Baylor.

“That group really took over the game," said Iowa State coach Matt Campbell. "For the first time that I’ve seen (this season), our O-line took over a football game, which was really fun to watch."

The writing of a long season has been on the wall for a while for the offensive line. Iowa State had to find a way to replace four starters from a season ago in Brian Bobek, Patrick Scoggins, Nick Fett and Brian Seda.

It wasn’t an easy task for Iowa State offensive coordinator and offensive line coach Tom Manning, who patched up the line with a group of mostly inexperienced fresh faces for this year's season opener against Northern Iowa back in September.

Sophomore Josh Knipfel, who had just transferred from Iowa Western Community College, started at right guard. Redshirt senior Robby Garcia, who had switched from the defensive line to the offensive line last season, started at left guard. Redshirt sophomore Bryce Meeker, who had played mostly on special teams in 2016, started at right tackle.

The experience Iowa State did have was also a giant question mark. Three-year starting left tackle Jake Campos had missed all of the 2016 season after suffering a broken leg. Julian Good-Jones, who started at tackle in 2016, moved over to center.

Things got even more dicey when Meeker suffered a knee injury and had to be replaced by redshirt freshman Sean Foster.

One or two question marks would have been tough enough. The fact that Manning had five question marks made for a season full of juggling. But he tried not to pay attention to what outsiders were saying. He knew the challenges.

“You’re kind of going through all those growing pains together, and really when you play offensive line, you’re trying to survive,” Manning said. “And that makes it difficult. As long as they can stay fairly healthy, you see a trend, usually upward.”

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It was hard to see early on. The Cyclones did well in pass protection but struggled to consistently open up holes in the run game. At Akron on Sept. 16, Iowa State exploded for 191 yards on the ground. In Iowa State’s next game, a tough Texas defense limited Iowa State to just 10 rushing yards on 15 carries. A week later, the Cyclones rushed for only 81 yards but still won at then-No. 3 Oklahoma.

The struggles have forced Iowa State running back David Montgomery to fight and claw for every yard. It hasn't been easy for Montgomery, who leads the nation with 101 missed tackles in his 1,000-yard campaign. Despite the struggles, Manning remained confident.

“We felt like there are some good young players in our program that as we evaluated them, not only through the recruiting process but as we evaluated them at practice, we thought and we still believe that there’s some really good young guys in our program,” Manning said. “You hope that if you continue to coach them really hard and they continue to really care and invest that things will continue to get better.”

Slowly but surely, they have. Over the past five games, Montgomery is averaging 120.4 rushing yards, including 144 against Baylor when the line was able to create a few more openings.

“I’ve always had space,” Montgomery said. “They bring the same energy, effort every play. Sometimes it just doesn’t hit, and I think sometimes we forget that it’s not always going to be there.”

Manning said he’s seen the group make massive strides the last two weeks. He agreed with Campbell that their best performance came at Baylor.

"I think the encouraging part was even last week with Oklahoma State, they played pretty good as well," Manning said. "So, I think we’re encouraged by there’s certainly a trend going upwards and how they’re playing.”

Most of that growth has come from sheer experience.

“I think the beginning of the season for us, it is difficult in the sense you go from fall camp and if you’re a young offensive lineman, the only thing that you really know at the time is the plays that you run against your defense. And then you go and get into the beginning of the season, you have to adjust and you have to adapt to a lot of different things and a lot of different defenses and different blitzes.”

Manning said having talent helps, but having motivation to get better is more important when it comes to playing on the offensive line. He credited graduate assistant Jeff Myers for helping with development and his players for handling adversity and still staying motivated.

“They probably have taken a lot of flack, but I think at the end of it when you look at it overall, they’ve played well,” Manning said. “We have to consistently be better at running the football but I think those guys have done a very good job in wanting to get better. That’s so big of a part with an offensive line ... you have to fight the urge to be lazy, and it’s really challenging because every day is very, very difficult.”

The next test comes at 2:30 p.m. Saturday at Kansas State. The labors of this season could pay off down the road, too. Most of this group will be back, along with a talented recruiting class that could create the best line in Campbell's short tenure in Ames.

“This is the first time we’ll actually have guys coming back which is nice to have,” Campbell said.